Thursday, April 21, 2011

the yellow brick road

For better or for worst I have moved to the middle of nowhere.

Maybe a brave choice but also maybe foolish.

Moving for love is a heady thing. Even when one stops - pauses and considers the consequences, the ramifications, the small minute decisions that awesomely make a life - even during reflection it's easy to convince yourself you've made the right choice. Not that I think I haven't. But this, like most things in life, isn't as easy as I thought. Everything is hard. Not desperate, or tragic, or unfathomably horrific. Just hard. Not unbearable, not un-doable, not depressing, draining, or dire. Just hard. My limbs work, my brain is ticking away, I have a house, a family, an education and friends (somewhere out there). But still, it's hard.

Post-modern malaise perhaps.

It's hard to complain when there's nothing serious to complain about. Not that complaining is any kind of joy or release, but when one feels unfulfilled - cheated somehow - it's instinct to turn to a open and loving ear and talk. Discuss, reflect, and complain. Whether this is childhood conditioning or some sort of inescapable Foucaultian human condition I don't know. I don't take pleasure in complaining I'd certainly rather be happy and complaint-free.. but it's odd really - to feel the urge to unburden oneself, lament the plight and perils of life, only to discover that there isn't really anything there to bemoan. It's bewildering really - I feel lackluster, unsated, and cheated somehow - as if fired unjustly or ditched by a philandering philanderer. The feeling remains though the cause is a mystery.

Consequentially, this ennui becomes coated with self-loathing.. 'who am I to feel so sad? Do I live in a hovel? Cope with abject suffering or daily humiliation?', no. But still.. why this state of quiet reflective depression? This petite hysteria?

It's not the love, and it's not the move. The love is, well, lovely, and the move has cured some of the dark overwhelming depression that sprung up this winter. So what it is? Simply a lingering black mood? A deep fatal personal flaw? Or is it an indication that I've made the wrong choice somewhere along the way? I've always bought into the western view of love and happiness. This ephemeral, ethereal concept that has never quite escaped from European romanticism. The bliss is there. I have the bliss. I have what great art, music, writing and song yearns for. I trust it, I embrace it, and I don't doubt it. So it's not the love, and thus not the move.